I THE RIVER BANK

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-
cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters;
then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of
whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes
of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary
arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below
and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house
with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small
wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor,
said `Bother!' and `O blow!' and also `Hang spring-cleaning!'
and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his
coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he
made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to
the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences
are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and
scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled
and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws
and muttering to himself, `Up we go! Up we go!' till at last,
pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself
rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

`This is fine!' he said to himself. `This is better than
whitewashing!' The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes
caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the
cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell
on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his
four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring
without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till
he reached the hedge on the further side.

`Hold up!' said an elderly rabbit at the gap. `Sixpence for the
privilege of passing by the private road!' He was bowled over in
an instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted
along the side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they
peeped hurriedly from their holes to see what the row was about.
`Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!' he remarked jeeringly, and was gone
before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then
they all started grumbling at each other. `How STUPID you
are! Why didn't you tell him----' `Well, why didn't YOU
say----' `You might have reminded him----' and so on, in the
usual way; but, of course, it was then much too late, as is
always the case.

It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through
the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the
copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding,
leaves thrusting--everything happy, and progressive, and
occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking
him and whispering `whitewash!' he somehow could only feel how
jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy
citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps
not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other
fellows busy working.

He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered
aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed
river. Never in his life had he seen a river before--this sleek,
sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping
things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling
itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were
caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver--glints and
gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The
Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the
river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a
man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired
at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on
to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world,
sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the
insatiable sea.

As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole
in the bank opposite, just above the water's edge, caught his
eye, and dreamily he fell to considering what a nice snug
dwelling-place it would make for an animal with few wants and
fond of a bijo riverside residence, above flood level and remote
from noise and dust. As he gazed, something bright and small
seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then
twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it could hardly be a
star in such an unlikely situation; and it was too glittering and
small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at him, and
so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually
to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture.

A brown little face, with whiskers.

A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had
first attracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

`Hullo, Mole!' said the Water Rat.

`Hullo, Rat!' said the Mole.

`Would you like to come over?' enquired the Rat presently.

`Oh, its all very well to TALK,' said the Mole, rather
pettishly, he being new to a river and riverside life and its
ways.

The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and
hauled on it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the
Mole had not observed. It was painted blue outside and white
within, and was just the size for two animals; and the Mole's
whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did not yet
fully understand its uses.

The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up
his forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. `Lean on that!'
he said. `Now then, step lively!' and the Mole to his surprise
and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real
boat.

`This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off
and took to the sculls again. `Do you know, I`ve never been in a
boat before in all my life.'

`What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: `Never been in a--you
never--well I--what have you been doing, then?'

`Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was
quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and
surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the
fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

`Nice? It's the ONLY thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as
he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend,
there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on
dreamily: `messing--about--in--boats; messing----'

`Look ahead, Rat!' cried the Mole suddenly.

It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The
dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the
boat, his heels in the air.

`--about in boats--or WITH boats,' the Rat went on composedly,
picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. `In or out of 'em, it
doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm
of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you
arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else,
or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and
you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it
there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you
like, but you'd much better not. Look here! If you've really
nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the
river together, and have a long day of it?'

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest
with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into
the soft cushions. `WHAT a day I'm having!' he said. `Let us
start at once!'

`Hold hard a minute, then!' said the Rat. He looped the painter
through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole
above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a
fat, wicker luncheon-basket.

`Shove that under your feet,' he observed to the Mole, as he
passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and
took the sculls again.

`Do you really think so?' enquired the Rat seriously. `It's only
what I always take on these little excursions; and the other
animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it
VERY fine!'

The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new
life he was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the
ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a
paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat,
like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on and
forebore to disturb him.

`I like your clothes awfully, old chap,' he remarked after some
half an hour or so had passed. `I'm going to get a black velvet
smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.'

`I beg your pardon,' said the Mole, pulling himself together with
an effort. `You must think me very rude; but all this is so new
to me. So--this--is--a--River!'

`THE River,' corrected the Rat.

`And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!'

`By it and with it and on it and in it,' said the Rat. `It's
brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and
drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want
any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it
doesn't know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had
together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it's
always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on
in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink
that's no good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom
window; or again when it all drops away and, shows patches of mud
that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the
channels, and I can potter about dry shod over most of the bed of
it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have
dropped out of boats!'

`But isn't it a bit dull at times?' the Mole ventured to ask.
`Just you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?'

`No one else to--well, I mustn't be hard on you,' said the Rat
with forbearance. `You're new to it, and of course you don't
know. The bank is so crowded nowadays that many people are
moving away altogether: O no, it isn't what it used to be,
at all. Otters, kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens, all of them
about all day long and always wanting you to DO something--as
if a fellow had no business of his own to attend to!'

`What lies over THERE' asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a
background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on
one side of the river.

`That? O, that's just the Wild Wood,' said the Rat shortly. `We
don't go there very much, we river-bankers.'

`Aren't they--aren't they very NICE people in there?' said the
Mole, a trifle nervously.

`W-e-ll,' replied the Rat, `let me see. The squirrels are all
right. AND the rabbits--some of 'em, but rabbits are a mixed
lot. And then there's Badger, of course. He lives right in the
heart of it; wouldn't live anywhere else, either, if you paid him
to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with HIM.
They'd better not,' he added significantly.

`Why, who SHOULD interfere with him?' asked the Mole.

`Well, of course--there--are others,' explained the Rat in a
hesitating sort of way.

`Weasels--and stoats--and foxes--and so on. They're all right in
a way--I'm very good friends with them--pass the time of day when
we meet, and all that--but they break out sometimes, there's no
denying it, and then--well, you can't really trust them, and
that's the fact.'

The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to
dwell on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he
dropped the subject.

`And beyond the Wild Wood again?' he asked: `Where it's all blue
and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn't,
and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-
drift?'

`Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,' said the Rat. `And
that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've
never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've
got any sense at all. Don't ever refer to it again, please. Now
then! Here's our backwater at last, where we're going to lunch.'

Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at
first sight like a little land-locked lake. Green turf
sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below
the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them the silvery
shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless
dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled mill-
house, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and
smothery, yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out
of it at intervals. It was so very beautiful that the Mole could
only hold up both forepaws and gasp, `O my! O my! O my!'

The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast,
helped the still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the
luncheon-basket. The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to
unpack it all by himself; and the Rat was very pleased to indulge
him, and to sprawl at full length on the grass and rest, while
his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread it, took
out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their
contents in due order, still gasping, `O my! O my!' at each
fresh revelation. When all was ready, the Rat said, `Now, pitch
in, old fellow!' and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey, for
he had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that
morning, as people WILL do, and had not paused for bite or
sup; and he had been through a very great deal since that distant
time which now seemed so many days ago.

`What are you looking at?' said the Rat presently, when the edge
of their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole's eyes were
able to wander off the table-cloth a little.

`I am looking,' said the Mole, `at a streak of bubbles that I see
travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that
strikes me as funny.'

`Bubbles? Oho!' said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an
inviting sort of way.

A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the
bank, and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from
his coat.

`Greedy beggars!' he observed, making for the provender. `Why
didn't you invite me, Ratty?'

`Proud, I'm sure,' said the Otter, and the two animals were
friends forthwith.

`Such a rumpus everywhere!' continued the Otter. `All the world
seems out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try
and get a moment's peace, and then stumble upon you fellows!--At
least--I beg pardon--I don't exactly mean that, you know.'

There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein
last year's leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with
high shoulders behind it, peered forth on them.

`Come on, old Badger!' shouted the Rat.

The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, `H'm!
Company,' and turned his back and disappeared from view.

`That's JUST the sort of fellow he is!' observed the
disappointed Rat. `Simply hates Society! Now we shan't see any
more of him to-day. Well, tell us, WHO'S out on the river?'

`Toad's out, for one,' replied the Otter. `In his brand-new
wager-boat; new togs, new everything!'

The two animals looked at each other and laughed.

`Once, it was nothing but sailing,' said the Rat, `Then he tired
of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to
punt all day and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last
year it was house-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him
in his house-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to
spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It's all the same,
whatever he takes up; he gets tired of it, and starts on
something fresh.'

`Such a good fellow, too,' remarked the Otter reflectively: `But
no stability--especially in a boat!'

From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream
across the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat
flashed into view, the rower--a short, stout figure--splashing
badly and rolling a good deal, but working his hardest. The Rat
stood up and hailed him, but Toad--for it was he--shook his head
and settled sternly to his work.

`He'll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,'
said the Rat, sitting down again.

`Of course he will,' chuckled the Otter. `Did I ever tell you
that good story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this
way. Toad. . . .'

An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in
the intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies
seeing life. A swirl of water and a `cloop!' and the May-fly was
visible no more.

Neither was the Otter.

The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the
turf whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to
be seen, as far as the distant horizon.

But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the
river.

The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-
etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance
of one's friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason
whatever.

`Well, well,' said the Rat, `I suppose we ought to be moving. I
wonder which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?' He did
not speak as if he was frightfully eager for the treat.

`O, please let me,' said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let
him.

Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking'
the basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying
everything, and although just when he had got the basket
packed and strapped up tightly he saw a plate staring up at him
from the grass, and when the job had been done again the Rat
pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have seen, and last of
all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had been sitting on
without knowing it--still, somehow, the thing got finished at
last, without much loss of temper.

The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently
homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to
himself, and not paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was
very full of lunch, and self-satisfaction, and pride, and already
quite at home in a boat (so he thought) and was getting a bit
restless besides: and presently he said, `Ratty! Please, I
want to row, now!'

The Rat shook his head with a smile. `Not yet, my young friend,'
he said--'wait till you've had a few lessons. It's not so easy
as it looks.'

The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel
more and more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily
along, and his pride began to whisper that he could do it every
bit as well. He jumped up and seized the sculls, so
suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out over the water and
saying more poetry-things to himself, was taken by surprise and
fell backwards off his seat with his legs in the air for the
second time, while the triumphant Mole took his place and grabbed
the sculls with entire confidence.

`Stop it, you SILLY ass!' cried the Rat, from the bottom of
the boat. `You can't do it! You'll have us over!'

The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great
dig at the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs
flew up above his head, and he found himself lying on the top of
the prostrate Rat. Greatly alarmed, he made a grab at the side
of the boat, and the next moment--Sploosh!

Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.

O my, how cold the water was, and O, how VERY wet it felt.
How it sang in his ears as he went down, down, down! How bright
and welcome the sun looked as he rose to the surface coughing and
spluttering! How black was his despair when he felt himself
sinking again! Then a firm paw gripped him by the back of
his neck. It was the Rat, and he was evidently laughing--the
Mole could FEEL him laughing, right down his arm and through
his paw, and so into his--the Mole's--neck.

The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole's arm;
then he did the same by the other side of him and, swimming
behind, propelled the helpless animal to shore, hauled him out,
and set him down on the bank, a squashy, pulpy lump of misery.

When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet
out of him, he said, `Now, then, old fellow! Trot up and down
the towing-path as hard as you can, till you're warm and dry
again, while I dive for the luncheon-basket.'

So the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed within, trotted about
till he was fairly dry, while the Rat plunged into the water
again, recovered the boat, righted her and made her fast, fetched
his floating property to shore by degrees, and finally dived
successfully for the luncheon-basket and struggled to land with
it.

When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and
dejected, took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set
off, he said in a low voice, broken with emotion, `Ratty, my
generous friend! I am very sorry indeed for my foolish and
ungrateful conduct. My heart quite fails me when I think how I
might have lost that beautiful luncheon-basket. Indeed, I have
been a complete ass, and I know it. Will you overlook it this
once and forgive me, and let things go on as before?'

`That's all right, bless you!' responded the Rat cheerily.
`What's a little wet to a Water Rat? I'm more in the water than
out of it most days. Don't you think any more about it; and,
look here! I really think you had better come and stop with me
for a little time. It's very plain and rough, you know--not like
Toad's house at all--but you haven't seen that yet; still, I can
make you comfortable. And I'll teach you to row, and to swim,
and you'll soon be as handy on the water as any of us.'

The Mole was so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he
could find no voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a
tear or two with the back of his paw. But the Rat kindly looked
in another direction, and presently the Mole's spirits revived
again, and he was even able to give some straight back-talk
to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to each other
about his bedraggled appearance.

When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour,
and planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having
fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him
river stories till supper-time. Very thrilling stories they
were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about
weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike, and steamers that
flung hard bottles--at least bottles were certainly flung, and
FROM steamers, so presumably BY them; and about herons, and
how particular they were whom they spoke to; and about adventures
down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions far a-
field with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very
shortly afterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted
upstairs by his considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he
soon laid his head on his pillow in great peace and contentment,
knowing that his new-found friend the River was lapping the sill
of his window.

This day was only the first of many similar ones for the
emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as
the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row,
and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to
the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the
wind went whispering so constantly among them.